In [“Dealing with Dragons,”](http://www.amazon.com/Dealing-Dragons-Enchanted-Forest-Chronicles/dp/015204566X) Princess Cimorene prefers fencing and Latin to lounging around and learning about “how loudly it was permissible to scream when being carried off by a giant.” She prefers economics to embroidery. She prefers cooking to curtseying. She has black hair instead of blond, and she’s terrible at being a princess.
Her parents, the king and queen of Linderwall, eventually give up on turning her into a proper princess, and they do what every fairytale parent does with a 16-year-old daughter: they arrange a marriage to a nice but incredibly stupid prince from the kingdom next door.
Cimorene’s finally had enough. She refuses to conform just to make things easier for everyone else. “I’d rather be eaten by a dragon,” she says. Since this is a fairytale, a talking frog (not an enchanted prince – as he says, “I’ve met a couple of them, and after a while you pick up a few things.”) overhears her and tells her that if she’d really prefer that, it can be arranged. He gives her some directions to a dragon hangout and she runs away with just a few handkerchiefs and her best crown.
She ends up as a dragon’s princess, cooking and cleaning for the dragon, Kazul. Kazul doesn’t mind that Cimorene isn’t a proper princess – she needed someone who could read Latin to organize her library, and she loves that Cimorene knows how to make cherries jubilee. Kazul and Cimorene are two of a kind. Neither live their lives based on what other people expect of them.
Then the knights start to show up. The standard reward for rescuing a princess from a dragon is half her father’s kingdom and her hand in marriage, and Linderwall is a large kingdom. Dozens of knights come to Kazul’s cave, hoping to rescue Cimorene. Slight problem: Cimorene doesn’t WANT to be rescued. She spends hours arguing with the knights who come to “save” her until she manages to convince them to go home and go after a more traditional princess.
While Cimorene is sending home scores of obnoxious knights, a plot is brewing to kill off the old king of the dragons. The wizards – not exactly close with the dragons – want more influence in the land, so they conspire to replace the king with a dragon who’s a little friendlier to them. The rest of the book covers Cimorene’s exposing and foiling of this scheme (who knew all it took to get rid of wizards was some soapy, lemony water?) and Kazul’s moving up in the world.
I love Cimorene because she’s so much like me – I love Latin. I love cooking. I love economics. I love NOT being exactly what people expect. I’d be miserable if a gave up my weird book obsession and ability to quote “Star Wars” just to make myself easier to deal with.
Cimorene’s extremely easy to identify with – who really wants to do exactly what their parents say all the time? Who really likes having their entire future chosen for them? She’s been a better role model for me than any wait-around-for-someone-else-to-save-me Disney princess. She’s resourceful; she rescues herself from a miserable situation. She doesn’t just whine about her life – she takes steps to make it better.
This is the first book in the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, which is a series that my mom read to me when I was little. Because of that, it’s kind of like comfort food for me now – rereading these books makes me feel better when I’m sick and cheers me up on icky days. It belongs to that cadre of books that never fails to make me smile, never fails to entertain me.
The series “Dealing with Dragons” is one of those that you never want to end. The characters are so likable – you never want them to leave. Their world is a perfect escape. It’s full of magic and mayhem, but nothing truly bad ever happens there. Plus, it has cats.
